Earl Green is the creator, curator, and head writer of theLogBook.com.
British broadcaster ABC airs the 116th episode of the spy-fi series The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg. Brian Blessed (Flash Gordon) and Charlotte Rampling (Zardoz) guest star.
More about The Avengers in the LogBook and theLogBook.com Store
The 157th episode of Doctor Who airs on the BBC. 
The 14th episode of Larry Cohen’s science fiction series The Invaders, starring Roy Thinnes and produced by Quinn Martin’s QM Productions, premieres on ABC. Robert Walker Jr. (Star Trek) guest stars.
This series is not yet chronicled in the LogBook. You could join theLogBook team and write this guide or support the webmaster’s efforts to expand the site.
The 58th episode of Irwin Allen’s science fiction series Lost In Space premieres on CBS, starring Guy Williams, June Lockhart, and Jonathan Harris.
The 29th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek airs on NBC. This episode concludes the series’ first season, and introduces numerous “fascinating” differences between human and Vulcan physiology.
British broadcaster ABC airs the 117th episode of the spy-fi series The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg. Drewe Henley (Star Wars) guest stars.
More about The Avengers in the LogBook and theLogBook.com Store
The 158th episode of Doctor Who airs on the BBC. This episode is now missing from the BBC’s archives.
This timeline entry leads to an entry covering this entire Doctor Who serial; there are plans to write new episodic entries in the future. You can support this effort!
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The 15th episode of Larry Cohen’s science fiction series The Invaders, starring Roy Thinnes and produced by Quinn Martin’s QM Productions, premieres on ABC. Peter Graves (Mission: Impossible) and Joanne Linville guest star.
This series is not yet chronicled in the LogBook. You could join theLogBook team and write this guide or support the webmaster’s efforts to expand the site.
NASA’s robotic explorer Surveyor 3 touches down safely on the moon, snapping pictures and – with an extendable scoop arm – gathering and analyzing samples of lunar soil. Its landing site, a lunar plain called the Ocean of Storms, becomes the site of a unique long-term experiment: in two years, Surveyor 3 will become the first (and, to date, only) unmanned spacecraft to be personally inspected by humans after its landing.
The recently-rechristened Environmental Sciences Service Administration launches, with the help of NASA, ESSA-5, the latest in a constellation of weather satellites operated by the former U.S. Weather Bureau. Though suffering from a few technical glitches and system failures, ESSA-5 remains in service until late 1968.
British broadcaster ABC airs the 118th episode of the spy-fi series The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg.
More about The Avengers in the LogBook and theLogBook.com Store
The 159th episode of Doctor Who airs on the BBC.
This timeline entry leads to an entry covering this entire Doctor Who serial; there are plans to write new episodic entries in the future. You can support this effort!
Order Earl Green’s book VWORP!1 from theLogBook.com Store
The first flight of the Soviet Union’s new manned space vehicle, Soyuz 1, lifts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Though designed to accomodate a crew of three – and intended to be the answer to NASA’s Apollo command/service module in the ongoing race to reach the moon – the first Soyuz is flown by test pilot (and close friend of Yuri Gagarin) Vladimir Komarov. Though early plans for the mission involve a rendezvous and docking with a second Soyuz, only one vehicle is available for the mission, and it suffers a series of technical problems. Though aware of the faults in the Soyuz design, engineers have been pressured to put a manned Soyuz in orbit for political reasons.
After a day in space aboard a spacecraft crawling with technical glitches, cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov orients the Soyuz 1 capsule for return to Earth. Though the vehicle survives reentry through Earth’s atmosphere, the main parachute fails to open, and the first Soyuz capsule returns to Earth at a speed of well over 100 miles per hour, killing Komarov instantly. The Soviet Union’s space program is stalled – much like the American Apollo program, postponed after the fatal Apollo 1 fire – well into 1968 as a result of the need to redesign Soyuz from the inside out.
The 59th episode of Irwin Allen’s science fiction series Lost In Space premieres on CBS, starring Guy Williams, June Lockhart, and Jonathan Harris. This episode concludes the series’ second season.
British broadcaster ABC airs the 119th episode of the spy-fi series The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg.
More about The Avengers in the LogBook and theLogBook.com Store
The 160th episode of Doctor Who airs on the BBC. This episode is now missing from the BBC’s archives.
This timeline entry leads to an entry covering this entire Doctor Who serial; there are plans to write new episodic entries in the future. You can support this effort!
Order Earl Green’s book VWORP!1 from theLogBook.com Store
The 16th episode of Larry Cohen’s science fiction series The Invaders, starring Roy Thinnes and produced by Quinn Martin’s QM Productions, premieres on ABC. Ed Asner (Lou Grant) and Burgess Meredith (The Twilight Zone, Search, Rocky) guest star.
This series is not yet chronicled in the LogBook. You could join theLogBook team and write this guide or support the webmaster’s efforts to expand the site.
NASA’s fourth Lunar Orbiter satellite lifts off for its one-week trek to the moon. Placed into an orbit that takes it over the moon’s poles instead of its equator, Lunar Orbiter 4 is able to map virtually all of the near side of the moon over a period of two weeks. Plans to have Lunar Orbiter 4 map the far side are thwarted by mechanical failures and problems with the probe’s camera optics.
British broadcaster ABC airs the 120th episode of the spy-fi series The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg. The remainder of the season will air later in the year.
More about The Avengers in the LogBook and theLogBook.com Store
The 161st episode of Doctor Who airs on the BBC. This episode is now missing from the BBC’s archives.
This timeline entry leads to an entry covering this entire Doctor Who serial; there are plans to write new episodic entries in the future. You can support this effort!
Order Earl Green’s book VWORP!1 from theLogBook.com Store
The 17th episode of Larry Cohen’s science fiction series The Invaders, starring Roy Thinnes and produced by Quinn Martin’s QM Productions, premieres on ABC. Ralph Bellamy (The Eleventh Hour, The Most Deadly Game) guest stars in an episode that concludes the series’ first season.
This series is not yet chronicled in the LogBook. You could join theLogBook team and write this guide or support the webmaster’s efforts to expand the site.
The 162nd episode of Doctor Who airs on the BBC. This episode sees Ben and Polly leave the TARDIS to remain on modern-day Earth; the TARDIS is then stolen, leading directly into the next story. This episode is now missing from the BBC’s archives.
This timeline entry leads to an entry covering this entire Doctor Who serial; there are plans to write new episodic entries in the future. You can support this effort!
Order Earl Green’s book VWORP!1 from theLogBook.com Store
The 163rd episode of Doctor Who airs on the BBC. This is the second Doctor’s second and final encounter with the Daleks, and this story also introduces Deborah Watling as new companion Victoria Waterfield. This episode is now missing from the BBC’s archives.
The 164th episode of Doctor Who airs on the BBC. This is the second Doctor’s second and final encounter with the Daleks, and this story also introduces Deborah Watling as new companion Victoria Waterfield. This is the only remaining intact episode of this story; the other six episodes were erased by the BBC.
This timeline entry leads to an entry covering this entire Doctor Who serial; there are plans to write new episodic entries in the future. You can support this effort!
Order Earl Green’s book VWORP!1 from theLogBook.com Store
The 165th episode of Doctor Who airs on the BBC. This is the second Doctor’s second and final encounter with the Daleks, and this story also introduces Deborah Watling as new companion Victoria Waterfield. This episode is now missing from the BBC’s archives.
This timeline entry leads to an entry covering this entire Doctor Who serial; there are plans to write new episodic entries in the future. You can support this effort!
Order Earl Green’s book VWORP!1 from theLogBook.com Store
The 166th episode of Doctor Who airs on the BBC. This is the second Doctor’s second and final encounter with the Daleks, and this story also introduces Deborah Watling as new companion Victoria Waterfield. This episode is now missing from the BBC’s archives.
This timeline entry leads to an entry covering this entire Doctor Who serial; there are plans to write new episodic entries in the future. You can support this effort!
Order Earl Green’s book VWORP!1 from theLogBook.com Store
The Soviet Union launches Venera 4, a space probe dispatched to the planet Venus. Venera 4 is equipped with a landing probe which it deposits into the planet’s dense atmosphere in October, and the probe’s findings stun scientists on Earth who had long considered Venus a near-twin of Earth: the atmosphere is predominantly carbon dioxide, with minimal oxygen and a pressure nearly 100 times Earth’s atmospheric pressure at sea level. The temperature within the Venusian atmosphere is found to soar past 800 degrees Fahrenheit, presenting a challenge for designers of the next round of vehicles to visit the planet. The Venera 4 landing probe is not equipped with cameras, and contact is lost with it before contact is made with the ground.
A near-identical twin of NASA/JPL’s unmanned Mariner 4 Mars probe, Mariner 5 lifts off en route to the planet Venus. Though the space probe’s architecture is similar to that of Mariner 4, Mariner 5 is modified to include solar shades to keep parts of the spacecraft cool, a problem which doesn’t exist at Mars. Mariner 5 takes almost exactly four months to reach Venus.
The People’s Republic of China conducts a nuclear weapons test under the nondescript code name Test No. 6, which is in fact China’s first thermonuclear (hydrogen) bomb test. Dropped by an aircraft, Test No. 6 has a yield of 3.3 megatons. For context, China had conducted its first nuclear test barely three years earlier.